David J. Hall ’63

Dave, a child psychologist who switched careers to become a businessman, died July 7, 2023, at home in Hondo, N.M., with his wife Alice Seely and their daughter Layla Grimes.

Dave came to Princeton from New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, N.M. He majored in philosophy and was a member of the Wilson Society, the Outing Club, the Student Christian Association, and the Rocky Mountain Club. His senior year roommates were Peter Curry and Craig Newhouse.

Dave earned a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago, then taught fourth grade for a year at a public school on the city’s west side. He then taught at Bruno Bettelheim’s Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, a residential facility at the university for severely disturbed children. He became principal of the school as well as therapist.

In his entry for our 50th-reunion yearbook, Dave recounts that he and his wife moved to Iowa, where they started an elementary school for “children with problems.” His “marriage and teaching career evaporated,” he wrote, and he returned to his hometown of Santa Fe, where he met and married Alice Seely, a painter and sculptor, whom he’d known since first grade.

Together they started a business. Alice designed and made jewelry, they started a jewelry factory, then added a gallery and gardens. Hondo Iris Farm includes iris beds, an art gallery, and a botanical garden featuring rare plants of the Southwest and Chihuahuan Desert.

In addition to Alice and daughter Layla, Dave is survived by sons Christopher Dixon, daughters Beth and Tristan Seely, son Christopher Seely, and many grandchildren.